Published by Roe Smithson & Asociados Ltda in Santiago Chile on 21 Oct 2008
Competitive Intelligence
In order for a business to stay competitive it is necessary for it to constantly analyze the existing market for any relevant changes. In addition, for a business to survive and to be successful, it shall adapt to any changes in the market.
The key is to gather and analyze information about the market and about your business’ competitors for sources that are open to the public. This process is called Competitive Intelligence.
This process is much more than merely gathering information. It is not only necessary to know where to go to find the data but it is also necessary to interpret it. The continuous change of the market makes also necessary to have a way to gather the data on a constant basis. Once the data is taken, is analyzed and the business owner learns how to use it to increase its knowledge about the company and the market, then he will be engaging in Competitive Intelligence.
There are different types of Competitive Intelligence tools and techniques:
- Contacting Government Agencies can yield valuable data but may often require excessive lead time.
- Searching Online Databases is a faster method of finding competitive information, although it is more expensive. Database search does not provide information that has not been released to the public or that has not yet been collected.
- From companies and investment community resources – Some types of data that are not widely available from databases can be procured by contacting the corporation itself or from investment community sources.
- Surveys and interviews – Surveys can yield plenty of data about competitors and products, while interviews can provide more in-depth perspectives from a limited sample. – Drive-by and On-site observations of the competitor’s parking spaces, new construction-in-progress, customer service at retail outlets, volume and pattern of suppliers’ or customers’ trucks, etc. can yield useful Competitive Intelligence information about the state of the competitor’s business.
- Competitive Benchmarking is used for comparing the organization’s operations against those of the competitor’s.
- Defensive Competitive Intelligence involves monitoring and analyzing one’s own business activities as the competitors and outsiders see them.
- Reverse Engineering of competitor’s products and services may yield important Competitive Intelligence information about their quality and costs.
This is an important process because without the proper knowledge to back any business decisions, an organization will be at risk for losing money. Therefore, to avoid failing to take advantage of a current trend, so your competitors could reap the benefits and might leave you out, talk to our group of capable professionals at Roe Smithson & Asociados Ltda that will carry out the process of Competitive Intelligence for you including a series of steps such as data collection, organization, analysis, application, etc.
